AUNT JEFF REMONSTRATES.
"If it makes you feel bad to have me cross," Patty said one morning, in answer to a remonstrance of Flossy's, "think how much worse it is for me to be cross. I have to endure my own company all the time, you know."
"Well, Patty-pat," Flossy answered meditatively, "be happy and you'll be virtuous. And that reminds me of Bathalina's room. Don't you think that when it's papered—aunt Britann, didn't you say it was to be done this week?—it might have a frieze, or a dado, or something, of mottoes?"
"Of mottoes?"
"Yes. I've thought up some lovely ones. 'A woman is known by the company she forsakes' is a good one. Then, 'The early bird dreads the fire,'—you know how she hates to get up and build the fire."
"Water is more her element," said Will. "Can't you have—
'Bonnet and feather
She'll wash together!'
or something of that kind?"
"Oh, no! That isn't good. 'Be virtuous and you'll be disagreeable' might do; and 'Marry in haste, and separate at leisure.' I'll think up plenty of mottoes, aunt Britann, if you'll have them put on her walls."
"There comes her aunt Thomas Jefferson Gooch, at your service," Will said, glancing from the window. "There must be a storm in the air to bring her over so early."